


figures of beauty

by Murf1307



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: (nothing explicit but the idea hangs over everything), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bigotry & Prejudice, Closeted Character, Cunnilingus, Historical Accuracy, I'm Sorry, M/M, Mutations & Sex, POV Character of Color, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Stealth Character, They didn’t finish having sex, This Started As Porn, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Man Alex Summers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-31 07:21:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21113141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: They find each other, again and again in secret, because the world will only ever want them dead.





	figures of beauty

**Author's Note:**

> Hello yes this is extremely self-indulgent bullshit about trans Alex and alive Darwin having sad sex and then finding some catharsis. Because I am always, always on my bullshit, and I hope you enjoy it too.
> 
> Written for the X-Men Big Bang of 2019, and I’ll be posting a link to the Art very soon.

New York City throbs with the weight of its own significance, a city constantly pushing its own edges. Armando thinks that's why he came back here. It's home, sure, but it's more than home. It's a place where a man like him can disappear, and where a man like him is most needed. 

Behind his sunglasses, in the depths of a gay bar on Christopher Street, he waits for someone who needs him. Alex’s hair is long now, and getting longer, feathered at the edges — Armando likes the way it looks, some of the bar neon shining through it when Alex arrives, pretty and red like the fire that burns in Alex’s chest.

Alex catches sight of him, but doesn’t join him right away. That’s part of the game; for safety’s sake, it’s better if their meeting seems accidental. If someone found Alex through Armando, it’s better for them to assume this is a one-night-stand. So Alex heads up to the bar, and Armando just sits and watches him for a little while.

His shoulders are a little broader, he thinks, than last time. His t-shirt is _ Streetcar-_tight across his chest, under his leather jacket, and it makes Armando want to touch him — he's always loved that bad-boy drag on Alex.

And he _ will _touch him, he knows, just not quite yet.

With who they are, they need the plausible deniability.

Eventually, though, Armando gets up and joins him at the bar. A little bit of a smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth. “Nice jacket,” he says, teasing just a little.

Alex shifts to meet his eyes. “Nice shades,” he replies, his voice _ almost _easy. If you didn't know him, you might think the tension in his spine means he's never done this before. He looks just enough like trade, he'd get away with it.

But that's not it. _ Armando _knows why.

Nevermind that, though, for now. Now, Armando nudges Alex's elbow with his own. “Think you might wanna get out of here?”

“Just got here,” Alex points out. “Haven't even finished one drink.”

Plausible deniability.

_ But I miss you_, Armando wants to say. He doesn't say it, though, instead leaning in to whisper in Alex's ear, “I got a room at the Chelsea, though.”

Alex likes the Chelsea Hotel, and that’s why Armando decided to move in — it was affordable, and Alex liked it, and really, those were the only things Armando needed to be true.

“Maybe when I finish my drink.” That’s as close as Alex will get to a ‘yes,’ but Armando knows that’s what it means.

“Sounds good,” Armando says, his hand drifting past Alex’s elbow on the bar. “You look real good, you know,” he murmurs, and the tone of his voice is a little off — he can’t pretend, not quite, that Alex is a stranger.

Because the last time he saw Alex, it was on the news, just last night.

_ Earlier today, there was a clash between mutant criminals and the small group of mutant vigilantes who call themselves the X-Men. A not-insignificant amount of collateral damage was done, though the majority of the fight took place in and around empty warehouses on the Hudson River. _

There had been film of Alex, cutting a fine figure in yellow and blue — though, of course, it all looked black and white —as he blasted at a woman in a torn black dress. She’d stopped his blast in midair, and they’d struggled like that for the rest of the clip, before the broadcast cut back to the anchor at the desk.

Part of Armando still worries about what might have happened, whether or not Alex got hurt in that fight.

That’s not the kind of thing that makes the news, after all.

So, he just watches Alex tip back the rest of his whiskey: the way his back arches a little, the throb of his Adam’s apple — more pronounced than it was when they first met, but Armando figures that’s just manhood finally catching up with Alex. 

At least he looks more alive these days. Things may be bad, but there’s fire in Alex, now, sometimes. He’s not so withdrawn, though the fear probably still lingers.

Alex puts his glass down with a small but resolute _ thud_. 

“I see you finished your drink,” Armando murmurs.

“Mhm,” Alex responds, cocking his head a little to the side like he’s considering something, his eyes a little hooded. “You still wanna get out of here?”

Armando gives him a little twitch of a smile, trying to be charming. “I believe I do.”

Alex flushes a tiny bit. “Just let me pay my tab, then.”

He does, and soon, they’re up the stairs and breaking into the hot, close air of a New York City summer night. How Alex is managing with that leather jacket, Armando doesn’t know, but he looks good in it, under the streetlamps.

The street is empty for the moment, besides them, and Armando reaches out, just for a moment, to run his fingers along the back of Alex’s hand. “I saw you on the news last night,” he murmurs.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” He doesn’t say anything else, because anything else would give the game away, and they need a locked door between them and the world before he can do that.

In a perfect world, one that Armando sometimes lets himself fantasize about, he’d take his hand outright. Hell, even if the world was just a _ little _ better, if it was safe enough to do it without worry…

But they don’t live in that world. Maybe they never will.

And sure, they’re trying to change that. Alex is an X-Man, is _ Havok_, proving to humans that mutants can have a place in society. Armando is _ Darwin_, a street hero protecting folks who need it, especially when mutants are in danger. 

Alex was on the news last night, and Armando spent last Sunday night in a holding cell; they're both doing what they can.

It hurts to know the world’s not changing as fast as they need it to. But for a moment, out here on the street, he can at least try to put these thoughts out of his mind. The night air is hot on his face, and Alex looks real damn pretty half-bathed in shadow in this part of the city.

The don’t talk as they make their way to the Chelsea, in part because they don’t have to. It’s always been that way, for them.

“I’m staying here long-term, now,” Armando murmurs as they arrive. 

“Suits you,” Alex murmurs back. His eyes, when Armando catches them, are crackling with one of the many things they don’t talk about, one of the things that make Armando’s heart ache.

They climb a few flights of stairs, anticipation building in Armando’s gut. As soon as the hotel room door is shut behind them, Alex shoves him up against it, kissing him hard — and, in that moment, the tension finally breaks.

Fuck, _ this _ feels like coming home.

Just for a minute, as Armando’s hands curl around Alex’s waist, over his shirt but under his jacket, he can allow himself to, losing himself in Alex’s kiss.

When they come up for air, Alex looks at him, fire in his eyes. “Been too long.”

And it has been; a month is too long — though, of course, it’s not the longest they’ve been apart, and they both know that.

Armando lifts a hand to the back of Alex’s neck. “Yeah,” he breathes, and initiates a kiss of his own, half-desperate, because neither of them knows how to be anything else with this. Not after everything they’ve been through.

Alex sheds his jacket, tossing it on the floor; somewhere in his pockets, metal rattles as it lands, muffled a little by the leather. Armando spreads his fingers on Alex’s back; through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, his skin is almost blisteringly hot.

“Need it, ‘Mando,” Alex breathes, in between kisses. “Feels like I’m gonna explode.”

He nods in reply, his pants starting to feel a little tight. “Yeah, fuck. Need an excuse to see you more.”

Alex leans his forehead against Armando’s. “Could move back up to Westchester. We could come down here on weekends, go drinking. No one would know.”

Armando shakes his head. “Talk about it later?” he asks.

They never talk about anything _ later _, after all.

Alex nods, his face only falling a little as he wraps his arms around Armando. He pulls Armando back toward the bed in this small furnished room, and God, Armando may feel like this every time, but he’s never wanted anything more than he wants Alex in this moment.

He slides his hands up under Alex’s shirt — after shucking his own jacket — and his hands are cool, cool, cool against all that hot skin. Alex moans, needy, and leans in for another kiss.

Alex strips out of his shirt when that kiss is done, leaving him bare to the waist but for the bindings. Armando hates them, hates that Alex needs them, and Alex arches into his touch as his hands find the fastenings. It’s not long before Alex is bare-chested, his body softer than a stranger would expect.

Armando loves seeing him like this, likes seeing him when he’s not hiding anything.

“Take your shades off,” Alex insists, swaying closer to pluck them off Armando’s face. Trying to find color contacts that don’t set off his mutation has been impossible, and it’s hard to move around in the world when your eyes are pure white. “I wanna see you, too.”

Armando smiles at him. “‘Course you do.”

Alex rolls his eyes, just a little, and stretches. Armando follows the arc of his back, the peaks of his breasts, with his eyes, and _ shit _, Alex has got to be doing that on purpose.

Judging by his smirk, he definitely is.

“You gonna strip off?” Alex asks, his voice almost a purr. “Or am I gonna have to undress you myself?”

Armando laughs and strips out of his shirt, then his undershirt. “Now we’re even,” he points out. “You gonna get out of your pants?”

Alex smirks a little wider, undoing his belt and his fly. “You gonna watch me?”

Hell yeah, he will. “Mhmm.”

Slowly, slowly, Alex starts inching his jeans and underwear down, each sliver of pale skin he uncovers almost maddening. Armando reaches out and slots his hand into the slight dip of Alex’s waist, taking him in: Alex burnishes gold in the sun, but these hidden parts of him are like porcelain in contrast.

Then, there’s that thatch of hair, his engorged clit poking out from it just a little. It makes Armando’s breath catch, just a little, every time. Nobody’s ever had parts like his boy, in Armando’s admittedly limited experience, and he’s really fucking into it.

He flicks his eyes up to meet Alex’s, smirking just a little, and gets on his knees.

Alex makes a noise that’s all desire; he loves being blown, and Armando’s more than happy to oblige him.

He curls his hands around Alex’s thighs, spreading them just a little, and then wraps his lips carefully around Alex’s stiff clit.  
  
It’s not like sucking cock — Armando’s done that a couple times — but it feels good, his face pressed against Alex’s crotch, pulling little noises out of him with his lips and tongue.  
  
Alex’s hands land on his shoulders but don’t stay there: one sliding into his hair, over his cheek, and Armando loves that too. Alex is grabby in bed, like he can’t get enough contact, and it’s perfect. Armando presses closer, inhaling the scent of him, sucking a little harder, and Alex lets out a moan, shuddering.  
  
Eventually, Armando’s mutation kicks in, because it’s hard to breathe with his face shoved up against Alex like it is, and his skin turns a little bit porous. 

Alex must feel it, because he lets out a whimper, his knees buckling.  
  
Smirking a little, Armando shifts one hand up to Alex’s hip, gripping hard to keep him in place. He can do things like that, keep his mutation working for things he _ wants _ to do, not just _ has _ to. He’s not as reckless as he was in ‘62, and he hopes that shows.  
  
Alex’s body shudders, and there it is; Armando can feel slick against his chin, feel the way Alex’s thighs tighten, and it’s clear: he’s starting to come.  
  
Armando pushes him through it, gently lapping at his clit, until Alex starts pushing at his shoulders, too out of it to tell him to stop. He does, stroking Alex’s thigh soothingly as he comes up for air.

“You good, baby?” he asks, standing up so he can cup Alex’s face in his hands.

“Y-yeah,” Alex murmurs, and that’s the point at which Armando realizes that Alex’s chest is glowing.

Shit, it really _ has _ been too long.

“When was the last time you let off a blast?” Armando asks, running one hand down Alex’s chest, keeping it between Alex’s breasts. “A real one, I mean, from here.” He presses gently down on Alex’s breastbone.

Alex shrugs. “I don’t know, man. It’s — I’m doing okay, just firing from the wrist. But I fuck up the bindings when I fire from my chest, and…”

“That’s not safe, in a real fight,” Armando finishes. “And you can’t do it at the school?”

“We’ve got kids now. I — I can’t risk…”

Armando kisses him, gently. “You should talk to Hank about this,” he says, admonishing gently, “This isn’t safe for you, and —“

“Nothing’s _ safe _ , ‘Mando,” Alex says, his voice breaking a little. “We were never safe. We’re only, it’s only — it’s only ever just us _ getting away with it._”

Armando hates that. It’s the one thing about this life that he really, truly hates: that Alex is right. They’re never safe, and they probably never will be. Not in their lifetimes.

Or...not in Alex’s, anyway.

Armando gently pushes at Alex’s chest, trying to get him onto the bed. “I know, baby,” he murmurs, “But...I hate knowing you’re making it worse on yourself.”

Alex sighs, sitting on the edge of the bed. “It’s...it’s just...easier, to keep doing what the kids and Charles need me to do.”

“I know,” Armando concedes, sitting down and hooking his ankle around Alex’s. “But it’s not worth it if it’s killing you. And every time I see you, it looks like it is.”

Alex closes his eyes. “I...I just want to do it right. Wanna make it all _ worth _ it, you know? All the shit we went through, all the people we lost…”

He trails off, sagging a little. Armando knows the feeling; the pain of knowing that if things had been different, just a little, Angel might not be dead, Erik might not be in prison. Charles might not have gotten shot. Raven might not have left.

“Me too,” Armando murmurs. “But I’m not sure it works that way.”

After all, they can’t fix it. All they have is this life they’re living. 

Armando protects people who need it; keeps protesters safe from cops; makes comments when comments need to be made, if the press even wants to hear him. He makes it clear that mutants can always turn to him.

Darwin is someone, in the end, that the city _ knows _.

Of course, _ Armando _ isn’t. Armando can’t be. Armando folds his life, his _ real _ life, into shoebox furnished rooms like this one, presses it soft and sad into Alex’s mouth, and remembers how it feels to burn from the inside out.

Alex lays his head on Armando’s shoulder, all hot skin and sorrow. “I wonder, sometimes,” he breathes.

“What?” Armando asks, his voice just as soft.

“What it would’ve been like, if I’d gone with all of them, in Cuba.” Alex closes his eyes. “I almost did. Would’ve, if Erik hadn’t…”

“Hurt Charles?”

Alex shakes his head, minutely, his hair brushing Armando’s neck. “If he hadn’t started talkin’ like _ Shaw. _”

The name puts ice down Armando’s back and the spread of lead in his belly, the memory of radiation in the back of his throat. It probably always will — he still wakes up, some nights, frozen like stone, a flash of white light behind his eyes.

“Except for that,” Alex murmurs, “I agree with him, a lotta the time.”

“Yeah.” Armando lays his head against Alex’s. “I mean, he just — we all just wanna be _ free, _ right?” His voice is wistful. Here, now, it’s impossible not to let his hurt out a little bit, alone in this room with Alex.

“And it’s not happening. Not really. Not Charles’s way.” Alex threads their fingers together. “I think...I think he wants to be good, more than he wants to be free.”

“I don’t think he understands,” Armando agrees, softly. “What it’s like, for the rest of us.”

“He doesn’t. He can see into all our heads, but he doesn’t _ get _ it.”

“Yeah,” Armando says, squeezing Alex’s hand. “We’ve all been through hell, him included, but...it’s a different kind of thing, for him, than it is for us.”

Alex laughs, rueful. “Yeah. He got it late, compared to us. Didn’t grow up like we did. We got _ born _ into it.”

Armando understands the scorn in Alex’s voice better than anything else on earth. After all, he was born into his skin. Alex was born into his body, into how the world saw it.

Those things have always been with them, even before the mutations made themselves evident.

“Hank told me, a while ago, Charles outed him, when they met,” Alex confides, shifting, moving into Armando’s lap. “I just don’t think Charles _ gets _ it. And he still thinks he knows how to save us all.”

There’s more of that scorn, low and angry, in Alex’s voice, and it turns Armando on, even though it shouldn’t. He _ likes _ how Alex looks, spread across his knees, fire in his eyes. He wants this man so much he thinks he could die of it.

Hell, you could argue he already has.

So Armando kisses him, wraps his arms around his waist to keep him close. Alex kisses back, his body pressing against Armando, burning like a brand.

"Let one out," Armando murmurs when they part, just a little, so Alex can breathe. "You know I can take it."

It always seems to startle Alex, when he says that, even though he says it every time.

"Don't wanna hurt you," Alex breathes, kissing him again.

Armando puts his hands in Alex's hair. "You're burning up," he points out, his mouth migrating to Alex's jaw. "You need to let it out, and you know I can take it."

He can help. And if he can't help by being there all the time, he can at least give Alex this.

Alex kisses him, yet again, pressing them chest-to-chest. The heat gets fiercer, burning Armando’s chest like a familiar brand, but he doesn't care, just holds onto Alex and waits for the blast to come.

When it does, he whites out. Just for a couple of seconds, as the blast burns into him, fire and ash as his body plates over, as his insides try to compensate for being set alight. It always feels like this, always feels like swallowing the sun, and that's how he knows for sure it was Alex's energy Shaw used that muggy night in Virginia.

But this feels just a little bit different; this feels _ right_, as he comes down from it. 

Alex is cooling off, his eyes screwed shut. Armando's chest is covered in ash, but he doesn't care; he just leans in and kisses Alex again, as gently as he can.

He loves him so goddamn much that even this feels good.

Alex opens his eyes, slowly, as if he's afraid of what he's done. His eyes are a little glassy, and Armando kisses him again.

"See, sweetheart? I'm fine." Armando runs his fingers through Alex's hair. "Nothing to worry about."

"I always worry," Alex breathes, his voice cracking open just like his chest just did. "I couldn't — I couldn't take it, if I hurt you again. Fucked me up so bad the first time."

Armando kisses him again, holds him close, because this is all he can do for Alex —remind him that he's here, that nothing has ever, ever really been able to kill him that should have. He survives, no matter what, and if it's a curse sometimes, in this moment, it’s a blessing, the only thing he can give to Alex: something to be sure of, the promise of his own survival.

"Wish you'd stay," Alex breathes. "Wish I could keep you."

They both know why they can't. The world hates them for too many reasons, and they can't even trust the people around them in the one place they should.

But here, now, Armando wishes more than anything that they could.

"Someday," he promises. "Someday."

Alex kisses him, his hands finding Armando's face, and there's a desperation in it. It almost breaks Armando's resolve; they can't be together, but they should be, need to be —

It's kind of killing them _ not _ to be.

"You could stay, too, y'know," Armando murmurs, softly, and lays himself down, pulling Alex on top of him. It's a weird position, Alex's knees around his hips at the edge of the bed, but Armando wants the weight, the intimacy of it. "You don't _ have _ to be an X-Man."

"Yeah, I do," Alex says, his voice breaking a little bit. "Somebody needs to be there, doin' what I do."

Armando doesn't press him on why, doesn't want to start a fight. He kisses Alex instead. "Either way, you got me, baby," he murmurs. "You got me for as long as you want me."

It's an almost desperate confession. It won't do anything, isn't anything they don't already know, but he can't help but say it anyway.

"God, 'Mando," Alex breathes. "Forever's a long fucking time." It's not the first time he's said that, either.

"Not long enough. Not for us." He's already died once, and he's not keen on repeating the experience.

Alex kisses him again, and Armando can feel it, can feel the intensity and the desperation Alex feels. They feel the same way about each other, and the only thing keeping them apart is the world itself.

“I love you,” Alex says, against his mouth. 

For just a moment, everything whirling in Armando’s head just stops.

He’s never said the words before. 

Armando pulls him closer. “I love you too,” he says, because there’s nothing else he _ can _ say. Them being in love doesn’t change anything, doesn’t save anyone. It’s just them, alone together, saying the words attached to the things they’ve always felt.

“I feel like you shouldn’t,” Alex admits, clinging to him a little. “You deserve so much better.”

They both do, it’s true. “I know. And so do you. But here we are, and I’m not gonna leave you again if I can help it.”

Alex kisses him again. “I want...I want you with me, all the time,” he says, and shit, it looks like they really can’t avoid this conversation, now. “But it’s not…people would hurt you, if they knew.”

“They’d hurt you, too,” Armando agrees, running his fingers through Alex’s hair. “It’s not really a risk I’d want to take, putting you in danger.”

“I can take it, ‘Mando,” Alex breathes. “I’m not scared.”

It’s a lie, but Armando understands. He understands that Alex _ wants _ it to be true. He’s sick of being scared, just like Armando is. 

That doesn’t kill the fear, though. It doesn’t change the way Armando feels it twisting in his guts, the idea of losing Alex altogether because of how the world is. No matter what they do to Armando, he’ll survive it. 

But Alex _ won’t_.

“I am,” Armando murmurs. “I can’t lose you.”

"We'll never be happy, though," Alex says, suddenly, pulling away. "We're just, we're never going to be happy like this. You're just gonna keep getting sad and someday I'll get old and die, and then what?"

He gets up from the bed, goes searching for his pants. 

Armando sits up. He's never seen Alex get like this before. "Alex, baby, I —"

"Don't apologize," Alex snaps. "This isn't...this isn't about you, it's about everyone else on the planet that scares you." He gives up on his pants and sits down on the floor. 

"I just...I'm sick of waiting for the world to change, you know?"

Armando gets down on the floor next to him, reaching out to take his hand. 

Alex squeezes it. "I love you, and you love me, and the world hates us. That's just how things are. And I'm sick of that making _ us _ impossible."

"...Do you want to stop?" Armando asks, because this is starting to feel like it might be a breakup.

"Fuck no," Alex says, his eyes ablaze again. "No. I'm tired of giving this up every time I get to have it."

Armando loves that fire in his eyes, and shifts closer. “Then what are we gonna do, hotshot?” he asks. He wants to believe that this it — that this is the tipping point, that he can’t miss whatever comes next. 

Alex swallows. “I...I don’t know, ‘Mando. I don’t know.”

So, nothing, then. 

“But we gotta do something,” Alex continues, cutting into the swell of frustration in Armando’s gut. “I know that.”

They’re both quiet for a long moment, and then Alex shifts, climbing into Armando’s lap again. Armando wraps his arms around him, and their foreheads rest against each other. Armando doesn’t know what to say, how to fix this, and it aches.

“I love you,” Alex murmurs. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” Armando murmurs back. “I just don’t want to lose you.”

Alex nods, and kisses him. “I know. I just...we’re not happy. I want to be happy with you.” He bites his lip. “I think...I think we’re gonna have to choose between being happy and being safe.”

“Not a great set of choices,” Armando murmurs, holding Alex close. 

“Think I know what I’d choose, though,” Alex says, very very softly. It’s barely even said, almost mumbled against Armando’s skin. “Cuz we’ll never be safe, anyway.”

Nothing makes Armando’s chest ache quite like that statement, because it’s true. 

The world would have to change a whole hell of a lot, for it to be safe for them to live in, just as they are, with nothing hidden. Armando isn’t even sure the world _ can _ change that much, not in Alex’s lifetime.

Armando runs his fingers through Alex’s hair. “I want to be happy, with you,” he murmurs back. “But can we do that, with the world like this?”

“People, people like us, have been happy before,” Alex promises. “I know you know that. An’ I, I’ve been doing some reading, and stuff, where I can.” He chews on his lip. “I at least wanna try, even if we don’t know how. Even if we fuck it up.”

His voice gets a little raw at the end, and Armando can’t help but feel it too, the need, deep in his heart and his guts. 

“You sure, baby?” he asks, his own voice breaking, just a little.

Alex nods, his face soft and sad. “Yeah. Because it’s you. It’s been you, y’know, since Virginia.”

Armando swallows. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah. Didn’t want to see it, at first, but it was always gonna be you.” Alex kisses him, so gently, just a brush of lips. “And then you came back, and I could do something about it.”

“It was always gonna be you, too,” Armando whispers back. “Despite everything the world set against us.”

Alex nods. “Yeah. So — so why stop there? We’re here. We lived. And we’re in love.” He kisses Armando again, a little firmer this time. “We’re in love, and I don’t think they should — anyone should — be able to stop us so easy.”

Armando believes him, in this moment. And that pushes him forward, pulling Alex tight against his chest, kissing him deeper, pressing all his feelings into this kiss, because in this moment, he can’t put words to them.

Alex kisses back, a soft noise coming out of his mouth. “You feel me, ‘Mando?” he asks, breathless.

“Yeah, sweetheart,” Armando breathes into his mouth. “Yeah, I feel you.” He cups Alex’s face in his hands. “So, how’re we gonna do this?”

“I think — I think we might have to leave New York,” Alex admits, flushing. “Not for forever, but...for a while.”

Armando nods, the idea of it instinctively appealing. “You wanna run off with me, hotshot?” he teases, gently. “I think — I think New York can do without me for a while.”

“Yeah,” Alex says, nodding. “Yeah, and the X-Men...well, I’m not sure anybody’s ever really needed me. Not...not really.” 

Someday, Armando will ask about those things, the things Alex doesn’t say about living in the mansion. When they’re far enough away, when they can smooth away the rough edges of the memories. 

“Kids’ll miss you,” Armando reminds him, in the meantime.

“Yeah, but that’s it. An’ it’s not like we’re leaving forever, so…”

“Right.”

Alex kisses him again. “We should leave in the morning. Just, just like this, before I can talk myself out of it.”

Armando nods. “Yeah. I better keep you, if I want to keep you.”

That makes Alex laugh, just a little. “You got me, ‘Mando. You got me for as long as you want me, now.”

And shit, if that doesn’t just feel like the best thing in the world.

“You got me too, hotshot.” Armando pulls him in for another kiss. “Forever, if that’s what you want.”

Alex smiles at him, warm and wild and perfect.

“Forever’s a good start.”

**Author's Note:**

> Further notes about time period and characterization.
> 
> \- this is set roughly around 1967; as a trans man, Alex is not in danger of being drafted. as a dead man, neither is Armando.  
\- as it is set pre-Stonewall, there’s not as much visible queer activism, but you can bet these two will get involved once that powder keg erupts.  
\- ‘drag’ at the time could mean any particular style or aesthetic, not just crossdressing.  
\- I write a post-resurrection Darwin who is altered by his resurrection to look a little more like the comics version, with pure white eyes and no hair.  
\- I also write Darwin with his deeply sad comics backstory, where his mother let boarding schools raise him because he was smart enough to get scholarships and she hated how much he looked like his deadbeat father. He develops depression and suicidal ideation as a result.


End file.
